visual cortex

The term visual cortex refers to the primary visual cortex and extrastriate visual cortical areas such as V2, V3, V4, and V5.

V1: The primary visual cortex, also the koniocortex (sensory type) located in and around the calcarine fissure in the occipital lobe. It receives information directly from the lateral geniculate nucleus.

V2: Also called prestriate cortex. It receives strong feedforward connections from V1 and sends strong connections to V3, V4, and V5. It also sends strong feedback connections to V1. V2 is split into four quadrants, a dorsal and ventral representation in the left and the right hemispheres. Together these four regions provide a complete map of the visual world. Cells are tuned to simple properties such as orientation, spatial frequency, and color.

V3: The term third visual complex refers to the region of cortex located immediately in front of V2, which includes the region named visual area V3 in humans. It is divided in furthur dorsal V3 and Ventral V3. Dorsal and ventral V3 have distinct connections with other parts of the brain, appear different in sections stained with a variety of methods, and contain neurons that respond to different combinations of visual stimulus. Dorsal V3 may be anatomically located in Brodmann area 19.

V4: It is one of the visual areas in the extrastriate visual cortex of the macaque monkey. It is located anterior to V2 and posterior to visual area PIT. It is unknown what the human homologue of V4 is, and this issue is currently the subject of much scrutiny.

V5: Visual area V5, also known as visual area MT (middle temporal), is a region of extrastriate visual cortex that is thought to play a major role in the perception of motion.